FESTIVAL GUIDE 2021
Welcome
! It’s with a huge amount of pleasure that we welcome you to this year’s summer festival guide! The past year has been one of cancellations and heartbreak as grand, imaginative plans had to be dismantled while quick-thinking artistic directors dreamt up entirely re-imagined offerings in their new world of concert streaming.
This summer, many festivals have still been unable to offer their usual full programmes, if at all, but the future looks increasingly promising. Over the following 30 pages, we explore the events that are celebrating our new freedoms with exciting, innovative concerts against beautiful backdrops from country houses, churches and castles to purpose-built opera houses and concert halls. Do let us know about your experiences of this very special summer of music. Oliver Condy editor
United Kingdom
Brighton Festival
Brighton, 1-31 May
Tel: +44 (0)1273 709709
After last year’s cancelled festival, Brighton re-invites poet and playwright Lemn Sissay to curate a month-long celebration mustering over 90 events, live and digital. Brighton Dome resounds to Monteverdi’s Vespers with an added sensuously secular twist in La Nuova Musica’s adaptation. Light sculptures and Brighton Festival Chorus cohabit in Stanmer Woods at twilight; baritone Roderick Williams leads an innovative approach to Schubert’s Schwanengesang; and pianist Paul Lewis prefaces a stroll around Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition with Mozart and Scriabin.
Bath Festival
Bath, 17-24 May
Tel: +44 (0)1225 463362
Shared between the Heath and Carducci string quartets, it will be third time lucky for Bath’s twice-postponed Beethoven quartet cycle. Also hoping for lift-off this May is a new incarnation of the long-discontinued Bath Festival Orchestra – originally the brainchild of Yehudi Menuhin back in 1959. It makes its debut in the newly restored Abbey, accompanying soprano Rowan Pierce in a selection of songs by Richard Strauss framed by Weber and Brahms. And in the nearby Roman Baths, the Gesualdo Six vocal ensemble offers a watery sequence flowing through nine centuries.
Norfolk and Norwich Festival
Norwich and surrounding area, 17-30 May
Tel: +44 (0)1603 531800
This year, Britten Sinfonia’s ‘Surround Sound’ invades Norwich Cathedral where, inspired by TS Eliot, the I Fagiolini choir is ‘Rewilding the Waste Land’. Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani teams up with Manchester Collective for Bach, Górecki and the premiere of Laurence Osborn’s Coin Op Automata. Plus, the Elias String Quartet reaches Schumann by way of Haydn and Purcell.
Perth Arts Festival
Perth, 20-29 May
Aside from a Drive-in Cinema weekend at Scone Castle, Perth is heading online once more. Complementing a cross-genre ‘Scotland Trending’ series showcasing emerging talent, an eight-concert ‘as live’ classical strand opens with the Scottish Ensemble at the restored Inchyra Barn. Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason braves Barber’s Sonata alongside Chopin, Mozart and Gershwin; meanwhile, vocal music comes in solo (soprano Ilona Domnich), consort (The Gesualdo Six) and choral (The Sixteen) instalments.
London Festival of Baroque Music
St John’s Smith Square etc, 21-23 May
Tel: +44 (0)20 7222 1061
Web: www.lfbm.org.uk
‘Grounds for Optimism’ is the title this year. Wrapped around short online programmes by harpsichordist Stephen Devine and violinist Bojan Cicic, three concerts (also streamed) explore late 17th-century English music. Viol music performed by Newe Vialles paves the way to Tenebrae singing verse anthems by Boyce, Purcell and his contemporaries.
English Music Festival
Horsham, 28-31 May
Tel: +44 (0)7808 639424
Web: www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk
Horsham beckons as the festival renews its pact with the byways (and some highways) of English music. Vaughan Williams’s Concerto Accademico provides the centrepiece for Orchestra of the Swan’s opening concert, and by way of finale Ensemble Hesperi offers a Baroque perspective that ventures north of the border. In between, the New Foxtrot Serenaders propose a little light relief and, a Purcell digression aside, the Armonico Consort devotes itself exclusively to Handel.
Opera Holland Park
London, 1 June – 7 August
Tel: +44 (0)300 999 1000
With its canopied theatre reconfigured for social distancing, Opera Holland Park plunges enthusiastically into a full summer season bookended by two contrasted comedies: Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, conducted by George Jackson and Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance. This year’s verismo rarity is Mascagni’s marital comedy L’amico Fritz which counterpoints Verdi’s tragic La traviata. Injecting a little feral Bohemian rhapsody is Janácek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, directed by Stephen Barlow and conducted by Jessica Cottis.
Festival of Chichester
Chichester, 12 June – 11 July
Tel: +44 (0)1243 816525
Web: www.festivalofchichester.co.uk
Heir to the Chichester Festivities, this festival has become a much-loved, month-long Sussex summer staple. All genres, from rock to world music, feature in its musically capacious big tent, and classical highlights include celebratory Bach from the Bach Players, South Korean pianist Young-Choon Park in Chichester Cathedral, and Beethoven and Brahms from the Castalian Quartet with pianist Daniel Lebhardt.
Summer Music in City Churches
London, 17-26 June
Web: summermusiccitychurches.com
A newbie to the London festival scene (it was founded in 2018), the Summer Music series confines itself to just two venues this summer: St Giles Cripplegate – where Milton was buried and Oliver Cromwell married – and majestic
St Bartholomew-the-Great. The London Mozart Players open with British music for strings; pianist Lucy Parham’s I, Clara enlists actress Juliet Stevenson for a portrait of Schumann’s celebrated composer-pianist wife; and pianist Mark Bebbington joins wind players from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for playful Poulenc.
St Magnus Festival
Orkney, 18-23 June
Tel: +44 (0)1856 871445
2021 would have witnessed the 100th birthday of Orkney’s most celebrated literary son, and St Magnus pays fulsome tribute to the late George Mackay Brown in words and music. Much of it is free or pay-to-view on the festival’s website, which reinvents itself as a virtual arts centre. Concerts filmed in St Magnus Cathedral include music by the poet’s great friend (and adopted Orcadian) Peter Maxwell Davies, and the Hebrides Ensemble premieres a new work by Tara Creme. There’s also new music by Sally Beamish and, conditions permitting, a series of live outdoor events feature the first performances of works by Karen Tweed and Lynda Nicholson.
Stour Music
Near Ashford, Kent, 18-27 June
Tel: +44 (0)333 666 3366
Founded by countertenor Alfred Deller and continued by his son Mark, Stour has been a family concern – until now! Conductor Robert Hollingworth assumed the helm last year and his vocal consort I
